INITIAL MEETING - Perhaps the most telling sign that the Audience Measurement Initiative may have trouble building a consensus among its members is the apparent lack of agreement over something that would seem fairly simple to start with: how they should pronounce its initials. This was evident Thursday during its official unveiling at an Advertising Research Foundation forum in New York where we observed a considerable amount of acrimony over the acronym.

BON AMI -- The last thing the ad industry would seem to need is another set of initials, but as far as we're concerned Madison's Avenue's newest acronym -- AMI -- is a pretty good thing. Or at least, it would seem so.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE MEDIUM FORMERLY KNOWN AS CABLE -- TV is a medium known for its sight, sound and motion, but lately some powerful TV insiders have become obsessed with nuances of certain words - words used to describe the medium of television. In fact, it has become something of a war of words, which began a couple of years ago when the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau sought to take ownership, not just of cable TV, but of the medium-at-large.

A PENCE FOR YOUR THOUGHTS? -- For years, big agency executives have been telling us that they're becoming more like Wall Street traders, than buyers of media time and space. Recently, Publicis has been making that quite clear.

THE FRENCH CONNECTION -- If you think about it, it shouldn't be surprising that French companies like Havas and Publicis would be particularly interested in Aegis Group. There's a strong French connection there that goes beyond simple business plans, including a fair amount of national pride.

TV DINNERS: OUT; INTERNET LUNCHES: IN -- Here's something to chew on: American appetites for media are changing - literally. What we mean by that isn't the hunger people have for various forms of media, but how they consume media when they are consuming something else: food.

FINALLY, A COLUMN BEFITTING OUR NAME: 'REAL MEDIA RIFFS' -- It was probably only a matter of time before Madison Avenue's insatiable hunger for branded entertainment found its way into the recording business, so we were not surprised to see an announcement today that an independent record company now specializes in turning big brands into big music labels. But could the next big path for rock 'n roll hopefuls be signing a record deal with Volkswagen, Tommy Bahama or the Gap? Actually, San Francisco-based studio Rock River Communications recently cut a record for GapKids featuring an anthology of songs ...

THAT'S THE SPIRIT -- Is it possible that the Riff has uncovered a controversial new trend in the field of sports marketing: one that links the consumption of alcohol to high-profile sports heroes, and by proxy, to the tacit suggestion that booze enhances sports performance? And will it be a divisive industry-wide scandal on the scale of tobacco, prescription drug and food marketing? Nah, it's just more of the same old alcohol industry shenanigans. But we couldn't help noticing that less than a week after Heineken unveiled a massive global ad strategy tied to an important international soccer tournament, that ...